Well, apart from the whole “worrying about money and getting job” bit, I could handle being unemployed. Without the restrictions like “going to work,” I find all sorts of projects to throw myself into.

The first projects were web-related; redesigning Action Entertainment and the Grunts page to take advantage of some CSS tricks and get everything validated. But that was not enough, so Friday I decided it was time that I install Ubuntu.

I had already purchased a second hard drive for this purpose, so I’m now dual-booting Ubuntu 8.04 (“Hardy Heron”) and Windows Vista (which my bootloader likes to refer to by its production name of Longhorn, for some reason).

Installing Ubuntu was naturally quite easy. It looks like it even has the option to partition the drive for you, but I didn’t do that, because WoW and mp3s have just about filled up my first drive.

My first issue was getting display drivers installed and my dual-monitor setup recognized. I actually made this a great deal more difficult than it is, trying to install drivers from nvidia’s page, failing, downloading and installing a program called EnvyNG, succeeding, but finding that WoW worked kinda so-so.

As it turned out, Ubuntu actually ships with up-to-date drivers for nvidia cards, but they’re not automatically installed.  Instead, you have to go (from the main menu)to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers, enter your password, check the nvidia drivers, agree that yes, proprietary software is double-plus-ungood and all of that, and *poof!* there ya go.

In theory, this should give you an nvidia control panel, but this never really worked properly for me. Luckily, editing xorg.conf did. First, type:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

And enter your password, because this tells your computer to open the file (xorg.conf) using the text editor (gedit) and to do it as a superuser. This pulls up a remarkably logical-looking file with all of your display and input settings. Under Section “Screen” I added the lines:

 Option        ”TwinView”
Option        ”MetaModes”    ”1280×1024 1280×1024″
Option        ”TwinViewOrientation”    ”RightOf”

Which says to set up TwinView, with two monitors at 1280×1024 resolution, and the monitor plugged into first spot on the graphics card to the right of the other monitor.

With that up and running, it was time… well, to be honest, it was time to drink beer and watch the Cubs.

But the next morning, it was totally time to install World of Warcraft. Now, Blizzard is good at supporting multiple platforms, but sadly this means “Windows and Macintosh” … BUT recent improvements to Wine actually make WoW on Linux a very viable option — it even supports ALSA sound, making many of the workarounds touted on installation guides obselete.

Actually, once I got everything set up right, it works better on Linux than Windows.

So. World of Warcraft.

First I had to install Wine, which is a not-really-emulator for Windows programs. It’s been a few years since I’ve used Linux with any degree of seriousness, and I must say, in that period of time, installing software has got a lot easier. From the Ubuntu main menu, select “Add/Remove” to open the add/remove applications setup. You can search or browse available applications here… just type “Wine” and there it is, check the box, click apply, and it will download and install Wine. Use the main menu to select “Configure Wine” or type “winecfg” in a terminal to set up Wine and you’re set to go.

One thing about runnig WoW through Wine is that it requires some editing of the config.wtf file to get it to use openGL instead of DirectX. Also, adjusting video settings in the game is not really possible, so you’ll get to know config.wtf pretty well.

The important line to add to your config.wtf is:

SET gxApi "opengl"

Also, OpenGL doesn't always handle fullscreen glow very well, so adding:

SET ffxDeath "0"
SET ffxGlow "0"

Can also help.

My complete Config.wtf file (with my account name removed), which is set for full-screen windowed mode with instant quest text, enemy castbars, hide party in raid, autoloot, etc.:

 SET hwDetect “0″
SET gxAPI “OpenGL”
SET weatherDensity “0″
SET ffxGlow “0″
SET ffxDeath “0″
SET checkAddonVersion “0″
SET screenEdgeFlash “0″
SET M2UseShaders “0″
SET vertexShaders “0″
SET showfootprints “0″
SET SkyCloudLayers “0″
SET Sound_EnableHardware “1″
SET particleDensity “0.25″
SET gxFixLag “0″
SET locale “enUS”
SET realmList “us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com”
SET patchlist “us.version.worldofwarcraft.com”
SET coresDetected “2″
SET gxColorBits “24″
SET gxDepthBits “24″
SET gxResolution “1280×1024″
SET gxRefresh “50″
SET gxMultisampleQuality “0.000000″
SET videoOptionsVersion “1″
SET pixelShaders “1″
SET movie “0″
SET expansionMovie “0″
SET readTOS “1″
SET readEULA “1″
SET showToolsUI “1″
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverName “System Default”
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverName “System Default”
SET Sound_OutputDriverName “System Default”
SET cameraPitchMoveSpeed “90″
SET cameraPitchSmoothSpeed “45″
SET realmName “The Venture Co”
SET gameTip “9″
SET gxWindow “1″
SET gxMaximize “1″
SET minimapInsideZoom “0″
SET assistAttack “1″
SET autoSelfCast “1″
SET autoLootCorpse “1″
SET showTargetOfTarget “1″
SET enableCombatText “1″
SET ShowTargetCastbar “1″
SET accountName “(my account name here)”
SET ChatMusicVolume “0.30000001192093″
SET ChatSoundVolume “0.40000000596046″
SET ChatAmbienceVolume “0.30000001192093″
SET Sound_EnableAllSound “0″
SET Sound_MasterVolume “1″
SET Sound_SFXVolume “1″
SET Sound_MusicVolume “0.40000000596046″
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume “0.60000002384186″
SET OutboundChatVolume “1″
SET InboundChatVolume “1″
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity “0.40000003576279″
SET minimapZoom “0″
SET questFadingDisable “1″
SET lastCharacterIndex “2″

The SET gxResolution “1280×1024″ line was particularly important because it had a tendency of wanting to set the resolution to 2560×1024 while still only opening on my first monitor, resulting a very skinny distorted version of WoW. My blood elf pally is skinny enough already, thank you.

So now I’m all set up except for Ventrilo, which I can’t exactly test on my own. A few things I found, though:

• Disable direct sound
• Hope and pray your Vent server uses Speex (you’re in the same boat with Mac users here)
•  If you can hear and not talk, it’s probably not Vent’s fault, just Linux’s screwy way of handling sound. From a command line, type “alsamixer” and make sure that Capture is enabled, set to your mic, turned up, etc.

Well, that’s been about it from me, apart from looking through the Add/Remove Applications list for some other necessities (Frozen Bubble!) and watching the Cubs get terribly, terribly beat up by the Dodgers (boo! hiss!).

Filed under: Computers